With a view to improving a player's performance, the ability to record appropriate data about a player's game and review/analyse it after the completion of a game would be of great value. In the case of golf, for example, the data recorded could usefully include the specific golf clubs used for each ball strike, the position of the player for each ball strike, the environment that pertained at each ball strike, for example, temperature, humidity, intensity of rain if any, wind speed and direction and time of day. Other data that might be recorded could relate to the condition of the player, for example, heart rate, perspiration level and also details of the swing used for each ball strike. The management of the recorded data can provide useful guidance to a player in the performance of their game. This field is highly developed and many different approaches to gathering such information have been proposed.
WO 2009/009147, Radar Corporation discloses an integrated GPS device & RFID transceiver used with passive RFID tagged golf balls and clubs to enable accurate automatic golf data collection. Reliance on tagging a ball to track the path of the ball around a golf course is common, however, this suffers from the drawback of needing to use non-standard balls which can of course become lost, which may not be permitted in competition and which may be more expensive or perform differently than standard golf balls.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,582,328, Kuta discloses a system comprising a GPS enabled individual subscriber unit for collecting golf game data during a game of golf, and a computer for receiving the golf game data from the individual subscriber unit after the game of golf and for generating a report of the golf game data. Kuta however relies on a user manually inputting club data through a subscriber unit user interface.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,142,236, Martz discloses a similar system except without GPS functionality.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,118,498, Meadows, discloses a GPS enabled PDA allowing a golfer during the course of play to mark a ball location automatically and/or determine the distance to golf course targets and/or objects, and to analyze golf related data and generate statistics.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,109, Lobsenz, discloses a golf scoring system in which an acoustic sensor is positioned in close proximity to the location where a golf club strikes a golf ball in connection with a golf shot. A receiver device is provided so as to be in periodic communication with the sensor. Thus, when a player makes a shot, and thus contacts the golf ball with a golf club, the sensor detects the shot and relays information pertaining to that shot to the receiver. The receiver, upon receiving the information, processes the information and displays it for view by the golfer(s) playing the round. The information may also be transmitted to a central location or to other specific locations for centralized, real-time display of golf score, pace and current hole information.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved system and method for gathering data in a relatively non-intrusive way during a game or practice for a game, and to provide the ability to review or analyse the data stored some time after the completion of the game with the intention of improving the performance of the player.